The art docent lesson today focused on further exploration of the creative possibilities of line, and we also talked about saturated or bright colors. We watched this video: https://vimeo.com/34698421

And then we did the same thing– using a piece of vellum with dots for eyes to find faces in the shapes that the children had drawn (the pictures attached are in-progress shots where you can see the dotted vellum).

After that, we looked at the color wheel and talked about the saturated tones of the rainbow that make up the basic color wheel, including some discussion about primary, secondary and tertiary colors, warm and cool tones, and the difference between “light” colors and “bright” colors.

The students learned a few traditional Chinese brush strokes. They first practiced how to hold the bamboo brush, then how to keep their fingers light on the brush, with the brush at times vertical to the paper, their elbows off the desks. Many kids stood to make it easier to stay light on the brush.

The kids practiced and practiced a simple up/down/up brush stroke to create what was the leaves on the bamboo stalk. They first used newsprint, then practiced more on rice paper. The students observed that different pressure of the brush on the paper created different results. The black paint on the rice paper created another element of observation, as the paint spread much easier on this paper.

The second stroke they practiced was the broad “stalk” stroke. They laid their brushes on the side and gently and lightly, moved the brush upwards towards the top of the paper creating segments of bamboo stalks. Too much pressure made the stalks too thick, and too little paint made the strokes too faint. The students continued to practice their strokes until they got the concept and brush movement.

After much practice, the kids created their painting following steps to create bamboo stalks and leaves on rice paper.

Preparation: We pre-cut rectangles of black paper in 3 sizes – the width of the painting t and two smaller sizes. The painting were done on white paper using watercolors in sunset shades – blue, white, red, orange, magenta, yellow.

Lesson:

We talked about the life of “cowboy artist” C.M. Russell and his love of the American West. We showed photographs of sunsets and example paintings Eileen and her granddaughter had done, containing elements like mountains, trees, cactus silhouettes.

We distributed paper, 1″ wide brushes, paints and water. The students painted the sky at sunset, using long horizontal brushstrokes allowing colors to mix at the margins. While the paints were drying they cut out black shapes for their background and foreground elements, then glued the silhouettes onto their paintings.

Unrelated activity pages were used by the students to allow time for the watercolors to dry.

We looked at the early work of Andy Warhol and discussed images that remind each of us of the winter holiday that our own family celebrates.

Before Andy Warhol began silk-screening soup cans, he produced thousands of whimsical line illustrations on various subjects. We looked at a small-format book published with several of these holiday-inspired drawings by Warhol.

Next, we worked on creating our own miniature (3.5″ x 3.5″) accordion-style books. Each child used a black pen to draw the outline of one image on each of the four panels of the book. After that, we learned about brush skills and chose one color from our water color paint set to accent certain elements of our artwork.

In September, Room 14 (Gaffney-3rd grd) students participated in International Dot Day. This is a day to celebrate creativity and personal expression inspired by the well known book, “The Dot”.

The Learning Objectives of the lesson were to:

1. Learn to explore their creativity and express themselves

2. Have a chance to make their mark without worrying about getting it right.

3. Develop a sense of pride in their abilities and enjoy a feeling of ownership over their creations.

We started the lesson by reading “the Dot”, by Peter Reynolds. This is a story about a little girl who is unsure about her drawing abilities, and her teacher who encourages her to make her mark (a dot), and see where it takes her, building her confidence as an artist.

Then, Room 14 set to work on their own dots, using watercolor to create their masterpieces. Each one of them really made their mark as no two were alike!

Lesson Materials:

Book: The Dot, by Peter Reynolds

paper

brushes

watercolors

Resources: This website has everything you will need for your International Dot Day Lesson

Discussion: Understanding color is important as an artist. If you learn the language of color, you can use it to convey a feeling, provoke emotion, highlight certain details, or even to give your picture a temperature.

Three colors – called primary colors – RED, YELLOW, BLUE – are the basis for the color wheel. These three colors can be mixed together (along with black and white) to create pretty much any color you can think of.

When you put opposite colors against each other, it makes the other color POP! Those are complementary colors. Warm colors are red, yellow, orange; Cool are blue, green, violet.

Warm colors feel like they are moving forward, while cool colors tend to make things look further away. (Have the kids think of the coldest place they can think of – and then have them describe the colors they see in this place; likewise with a hot place.) I also showed the students some of Paul Klee’s work where it was obvious that he was using certain primary colors to convey feelings or movement in his painting.

Artist: A modern artist who loved color was the great Paul Klee (1879 – 1940, born near Bern, Switzerland), a Swiss artist who painted in the 1900’s. He used color as a language, to create a sense of place in his pictures (the Tunisian watercolors) or of temperature (The Nile painting – the blue and white squares tell the story of a cool river – we know it’s water looking at it, even though we don’t see the shape of an ocean or stream). Some of his greatest paintings used just shapes and color. Paul Klee started off as a musician and an artist. When he started to pursue his art further, he started by using lines, then shapes, then color. It wasn’t until he learned about color that his paintings came alive with beauty and excitement. He painted what he saw, and what he felt using color.

Take a second to have the child think about what he/she wants to say with their painting. Do they want to make a picture seem hot? Or seem cold? Or maybe both of those things? Or make a picture that feels happy, or serious?

Let the kids go to town painting. Guide them to try and use different colors in every square so they play around with mixing the colors right on their paper. When the colors touch each other and if their paintbrushes are wet enough, the colors will begin to mix right on their paper. Colors can be overlapped as well, the liquid watercolors are so vivid that it’s really interesting to see what you get when you layer them on top of each other. There was enough cut watercolor paper for two pieces each.

Tips: Paintbrushes stay with the paint color. One brush per paint color. 2 people share the set of colors. Keep your paintbrushes nice and moist. No dry paintbrushes. The more wet the brush, the more the colors will blend. Less blending with a drier brush. No recognizable shapes or images, just encourage the students to explore color on their paper.

Gold will go on LAST. As an accent. Keep to no more than half your paper. Don’t let the kids go overboard with the gold, it is meant to be an accent after the color has been applied. AND meant to be overlapped, not used just on it’s own.

Vocabulary: Primary colors – Any of a group of colors from which all other colors can be made by mixing.

(click on pics for a closer look at the students work, and the written “emotion” they were painting.)

The kids were instructed to think of an event in their lives that stirred up emotions. Then asked to paint with watercolors their “emotions”. They were not to paint any sort of recognizable form or figure, but rather motions and movements with color that conveyed their emotion at the time of this event in their lives.

I loved this lesson, I love this special “emotion” color wheel. Thanks Jim for the lesson!

Art Elements/Principles/Artists Reviewed: color – showed various works of art that portrayed all types of emotions through color